A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is a legal document that allows someone to make decisions for you, or act on your behalf. This can be due to you no longer wanting to, or being physically or mentally unable to do so yourself.
There may be a number of reasons why you need a Power of Attorney, such as in a short-term, temporary situation whereby you may need someone to pay your bills on your behalf, or it could be something more permanent, such as a long-term illness, in which you may lose the mental capacity to make your own decisions altogether.
Mental capacity refers to your ability to make decisions and understand the consequences of these decisions, at the time that they need to be made. Some people may be able to make such decisions now, but will be aware that in the future, this could change through developing an illness such as dementia, or from having a sudden stroke.
Needing more time to understand and make a decision also doesn’t necessarily mean a person lacks mental capacity. An attempt should always be made for an individual to make their own decision, even if that requires time and aid with being able to communicate their decision.
There are two types of Lasting Power of attorney which have replaced the old ‘Enduring Power of Attorney’.
The ‘Enduring Power of Attorney’ was replaced by the ‘Lasting Power of Attorney’ in 2007, but if you set an EPA up before then, it should still be in effect. This gives your chosen person (or people, if you choose more than one) the ability to help make decisions about your property and money. Any decisions they make must be in your best interest; they can’t simply take all of it from you. The EPA must be registered when you start to lose or have lost your mental capacity, or when you decide you want someone else to act on your behalf. An EPA lasts until you cancel it yourself or until you pass away.
The updated, more robust Lasting Power of Attorney allows your chosen person/people (attorneys) to make decisions about either your Property & Financial affairs and/or your Health & Welfare. Those making decisions on your behalf again must make these in your best interest, and also refer to any guidelines or instructions you set out in your LPA.
Under the Property & Finance LPA, the chosen attorneys can do things such as pay bills, make charity donations, buy gifts for birthdays/anniversaries and even sell property on your behalf.
Under Health and Welfare, the attorneys can help you to make decisions, (or if your completely mentally incapacitated, make these decisions on your behalf) about things such as daily routines, medical care and making decisions about where you live. This will all begin once you have registered an LPA and no longer have the mental capacity to make decisions. An LPA is in force during your lifetime, until you pass away.
Your attorney/s can choose to stop acting on your behalf (sometimes called ‘disclaiming an attorneyship’) in which case it will be passed on to a replacement as set out in your Lasting Power of Attorney document.
An individual may also have to stop acting on your behalf. This can be due to reasons such as:
Don’t leave it too late, get the LPA in place sooner rather than later, this is best advice. To ensure the documents are set up in the correct way, legal advice should always be sought first otherwise the LPA could be invalid in the future.
Hopefully you will now be more aware of what these valuable legal documents are and how they can be used, and it might be that once having them in place you never have to use them, but at least you and your close family members will have the peace of mind that if needed, they are there.
Please contact our legal specialist, Sophie Vines, for further information on 01507 304222.
We would be happy to hear from you so get in touch via phone or email to one of our advisers directly and we will respond within 48 hours.
Florins Pensions & Investments Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Florins Pensions & Investments Ltd is entered on the Financial Services Register https://register.fca.org.uk/ under reference 512554
Licensed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales to carry out the reserved legal activity of non-contentious probate in England and Wales
If you wish to register a complaint, please write to or telephone 01507 304222. A summary of our internal complaints handling procedures for the reasonable and prompt handling of complaints is available on request and if you cannot settle your complaint with us, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service at financial-ombudsman.org.uk or by contacting them on 0800 023 4 567. If you cannot settle your Probate complaint with us, you may be entitled to refer it to the Legal Ombudsman at legalombudsman.org.uk or by calling 0300 555 0333.
The guidance and/or advice contained within this website is subject to the UK regulatory regime, and is therefore targeted at consumers based in the UK.
